The Cincinnati Post winds down

[lantaur]

Something I've been thinking about as we count down the days to the New Year - the Cincinnati Post will soon no longer exist.

I know there is at least one member of that paper who visits this board - and definitely many ex-Boast employees, including myself.

Many fond memories of that little place and a lot of good people worked there.

I hope those that work there and are aiming to stay in the business have leads to find work elsewhere (one person I know I believe is probably going to leave the business).

Anyway, it is still weeks away, but be sure that I'll tip a glass at some point to the Post.

 

[Angola!]

Something I've been thinking about as we count down the days to the New Year - the Cincinnati Post will soon no longer exist.

I know there is at least one member of that paper who visits this board - and definitely many ex-Boast employees, including myself.

Many fond memories of that little place and a lot of good people worked there.

I hope those that work there and are aiming to stay in the business have leads to find work elsewhere (one person I know I believe is probably going to leave the business).

Anyway, it is still weeks away, but be sure that I'll tip a glass at some point to the Post.

How big is the paper and why is it closing?

 

[dooley_womack1]

Tis a shame. It was considered Cincy's quality paper.

 

[deskslave]

Something I've been thinking about as we count down the days to the New Year - the Cincinnati Post will soon no longer exist.

I know there is at least one member of that paper who visits this board - and definitely many ex-Boast employees, including myself.

Many fond memories of that little place and a lot of good people worked there.

I hope those that work there and are aiming to stay in the business have leads to find work elsewhere (one person I know I believe is probably going to leave the business).

Anyway, it is still weeks away, but be sure that I'll tip a glass at some point to the Post.

How big is the paper and why is it closing?

27/37 (Sat.). Because the Enquirer ended the JOA.

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070717/BIZ/707170339

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Thank you, Gannett, for your continuing contribution to the effort to make this business truly suck.

 

[slappy4428]

I remember stringing some Michigan stories for the Post when I was in Ann Arbor. Somewhere tucked away in a drawer I think I have a Kevin Hahn business card. And as a Scripps cancer survivor, I can feel for the Post employees.

 

[John]

It's strange. I've known about the shutdown for what seems like years now, but it feels like its arrived rather suddenly.

To my favorite Reds writer, I wish you the best of luck. I have no doubt that you're headed for bigger and better things.

 

[In Cold Blood]

What's scary is if you look at the 1974 thread, you'll see the post once was the bigger paper in Cincy, with a circ of over 200,000.

A sad demise.

 

[Twoback]

Thank you, Gannett, for your continuing contribution to the effort to make this business truly suck.

That one's on Scripps, not Gannett.
Far as I know, Scripps has shuttered far more big-city papers than Gannett has.

 

[Football_Bat]

Knowing that the end has been coming for so long, how is anyone left at the place still even tickling a keyboard? Mega props to those soldiering on.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Thank you, Gannett, for your continuing contribution to the effort to make this business truly suck.

That one's on Scripps, not Gannett.
Far as I know, Scripps has shuttered far more big-city papers than Gannett has.

Then what's all this, then?

The decision by Scripps to cease publication comes three years after the company was notified by the Gannett Co., owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, that the 30-year contractual agreement under which the Enquirer handles business operations for The Post would not be renewed when it expired at the end of this year. Under that agreement, advertising and subscription sales, production and distribution were handled for The Post newspapers by the Enquirer, but the news operations and the editorial pages were separate and competed with each other.

 

[HoopsMcCann]

it's on both -- gannett for not following through with the terms of the joa and scripps for not fighting it and making sure they did. **** them both

 

[EStreetJoe]

it's on both -- gannett for not following through with the terms of the joa and scripps for not fighting it and making sure they did. **** them both

It was a 30-year JOA that expires this year. How is Gannett not following through on the terms?

 

[black dude with pompano]

I know that, in the past, Scripps has helped people from their defunct papers land at other Scripps properties. Is that the case in Cincy?

 

[HoopsMcCann]

It was a 30-year JOA that expires this year. How is Gannett not following through on the terms?

how was gannett not following its terms -- like when people called to subscribe to the post, telling them it wasn't available at their address, even though their neighbors got the paper. or not filling boxes that they were legally obligated to fill. or not putting in the inserts that they were supposed to put in. or not selling ads or jacking up the price for the post. you want me to go on? oh, yeah, the last three weeks, i'm sure, is hunky dory. **** gannett and **** scripps for letting them get away with it. hope that answers the questions from alexandria

 

[Furry Tractor]

I know that, in the past, Scripps has helped people from their defunct papers land at other Scripps properties. Is that the case in Cincy?

There aren't many left, are there? The Rocky and Memphis would be about it in big markets. Scripps is far more interested (and invested) in the TV business these days, with all its various cable properties. Safe to say not many of its rank-and-file newspaper employees have much use for the Fine Living network, though.

 

[EStreetJoe]

It was a 30-year JOA that expires this year. How is Gannett not following through on the terms?

how was gannett not following its terms -- like when people called to subscribe to the post, telling them it wasn't available at their address, even though their neighbors got the paper. or not filling boxes that they were legally obligated to fill. or not putting in the inserts that they were supposed to put in. or not selling ads or jacking up the price for the post. you want me to go on? oh, yeah, the last three weeks, i'm sure, is hunky dory. **** gannett and **** scripps for letting them get away with it. hope that answers the questions from alexandria

Didn't realize Gannett had told the Post and Scipps to turn around and bend over like that .

 

[HoopsMcCann]

they didn't tell 'em ****, because if they did, it would be easy to prove that they violated the joa -- instead, they just did it and scripps pussied up and didn't say **** about it and let it happen

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

It was a 30-year JOA that expires this year. How is Gannett not following through on the terms?

how was gannett not following its terms -- like when people called to subscribe to the post, telling them it wasn't available at their address, even though their neighbors got the paper. or not filling boxes that they were legally obligated to fill. or not putting in the inserts that they were supposed to put in. or not selling ads or jacking up the price for the post. you want me to go on? oh, yeah, the last three weeks, i'm sure, is hunky dory. **** gannett and **** scripps for letting them get away with it. hope that answers the questions from alexandria

Your anger is certainly justified, but this is not unusual in a JOA. The wildest example was in Anchorage in the 1970s, where the Daily News was being screwed so royally exactly this way in the JOA by the Anchorage Times that it was having trouble meeting the payroll for its newsroom of 12. Kay Fanning, the owner of the News, sued the Times to dissolve the JOA and eventually reached an out-of-court settlement that dissolved the JOA, with the Times having to continue printing the News until it got new presses. As it turned out, she wound up selling to McClatchy, which invested heavily in the News and put the Times out of business. Now I couldn't find circulation figures, but my recollection is that by the time they settled, the Times had a circ of 50,000 and the News about 10,000. Most companies would not try to overcome a gap that big and they choose to fold instead. But it's common for the weaker party in the JOA to get screwed. It isn't just Gannett and it isn't just corporations -- in Alaska, both papers were independently owned.

 

[BBJones]

Seems to me a paper that has lost 84 percent of its circulation over 30 years in a metro area that has gotten bigger over the same span ought not to remain open. If the people there are good, they'll get good jobs elsewhere. But why would they want to stay at a place with that kind of circle-the-drain track record?